Google told to delete Street View payload data or face UK prosecution

Google has been threatened with criminal proceedings by the information commissioner’s office (ICO) over data secretly collected by its Street View cars in the UK.

The privacy watchdog said it would prosecute the US firm under the contempt of court act if it failed to delete private information it gathered from public Wi-Fi networks.

The ICO has served Google with an enforcement notice ordering it to delete the data within 35 days or face criminal proceedings.

Stephen Eckersley, the ICO’s head of enforcement, said: “Today’s enforcement notice strengthens the action already taken by our office, placing a legal requirement on Google to delete the remaining payload data identified last year within the next 35 days and immediately inform the ICO if any further disks are found. Failure to abide by the notice will be considered as contempt of court, which is a criminal offence.”